By David Liden, Guest Columnist
It was no surprise to those who have been following Cherokee County Board of Education discussions in past months that they postponed their application for state funding toward a huge new K-8 school.
The mega-school they had been discussing would have meant closing three community schools in Peachtree, Martins Creek and Murphy, as well as Murphy Middle School, and collecting 1,200 kids or more together in one structure in an as-yet-undetermined location. After weeks of criticism from concerned community members, and a lack of necessary support from county commissioners, it seems the school board realized their concept would not have been competitive.
In addition to the questionable concept of a K-8 mega school, this application stood little chance of funding, as there were no documented planning nor architectural drawings. Any cost projections to the state and county taxpayers would have been unfounded. Claims of operational savings were hypothetical.
Various application requirements had been ignored and, more importantly, there was no evidence, as required by the state, that there would be any improvement in the quality and effectiveness of the students’ educational experience. (Where was the teacher and classroom input to this plan? Someone forgot the old maxim that parents trust teachers.)
If you look at trends in public school education across North Carolina, you will see a universal interest in blending technology with student and community-centered solutions to educational needs. The emphasis is on flexible, customized parent/community/teacher involvement in safe and healthy environments, where students can focus on learning and growing both academically and socially as they prepare for their futures.
But we should move quickly. If you track the priorities of the state Department of Public Instruction and discussions by organizations like EducationNC, you will see that a key issue in
our state is the decline in public school enrollment due to the growing number of alternatives: small private and charter schools, options such as virtual/customized techniques, and mushrooming home schooling. There are estimates of as many as 600 home-schooled kids in Cherokee County.
These trends are supported by the N.C. General Assembly, which continues to increase the allocation of tax money for waivers to cover the cost of enrolling in public school alternatives. Against these trends and innovations our board’s mega-school concept appears to be a generation behind.
(Imagine the daily anxiety as hundreds of disgruntled parent cars converge to pick up kids at 3 p.m. in the face of more busing and longer routes.)
While professionals across the state are recognizing the value of smaller, familiar, flexible, community-based learning, we are faced with an outdated proposal to close over half of our community-centered schools.
Now, at least, the school board, county commission, interested parents and teachers have another year to take a deep breath, then carefully and methodically consider the range of possibilities
that might be available to us. In the meantime, the school board can deal with immediate problems, such as the shortage of bathrooms at Murphy Middle (they were promised over a year ago), preventative maintenance so there are no more surprises like mold in a school just before opening and the uncertainty of whether there will be buses to carry our kids home after school.
And then there’s the big issue of how to replace aging Murphy High School.
David Liden has been interested in Cherokee County Schools for years. His three children went through grades K-12 in local schools, and his grandchildren are students today.